Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

"Undervalued" UFAs

06/29/2017 at 6:56am EDT

from Rob Vollman at NHL.com,

One of the more useful applications of modern hockey analytics is to help uncover some of the League's undervalued players. Here is an all-star team of such players who could become unrestricted free agents July 1, including an interesting statistic or two for each one (all salary cap numbers courtesy CapFriendly.com).

Kris Versteeg, RW

2016-17 salary cap charge: $950,000

Versteeg has played for five NHL teams in the past four seasons, and has had between 34 and 38 points every season. In 2016-17 he had 37 points (15 goals, 22 assists) in 69 games with the Calgary Flames.

More than just a consistent source of secondary scoring, Versteeg performs well on the power play, where his 16 points were tied for second on the Flames, one point behind Sean Monahan.

He also has had success with his shot-based metrics. In 2015-16, the Carolina Hurricanes and the Los Angeles Kings beat their opponents 1,070-812 in 5-on-5 shot attempts with Versteeg on the ice, for an SAT of plus-258 that was 17th in the NHL.

Ron Hainsey, D

2016-17 salary cap charge: $2.83 million

When facing the Pittsburgh Penguins during the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the defensemen that top opponents like Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals, Erik Karlsson of the Ottawa Senators and Filip Forsberg of the Nashville Predators were most likely to face was Ron Hainsey and his partner Brian Dumoulin.

Hainsey, who started the season with the Carolina Hurricanes before being traded to the Penguins on Feb. 23, is no strangers to big minutes, having averaged 21:40 of ice time the past 11 seasons. This season he was 38th in the NHL with an average even-strength ice time of 18:49 per game, and was 12th in shorthanded ice time per game at 3:01.

more players....

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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